stupid
Americanadjective
-
stupider,
comparative
-
stupidest
superlative
-
lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; slow-witted.
-
characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless.
Sorry for asking a stupid question, but why is the answer four instead of five?
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tediously boring, especially due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless.
He wished he'd never come to such a stupid party.
-
annoying or irritating; troublesome.
Turn off that stupid radio.
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in a state of stupor; stupefied.
After a twelve-hour work day, she was stupid from fatigue.
noun
adjective
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lacking in common sense, perception, or normal intelligence
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(usually postpositive) stunned, dazed, or stupefied
stupid from lack of sleep
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having dull mental responses; slow-witted
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trivial, silly, or frivolous
noun
Usage
What are other ways to say stupid? The adjective stupid describes things characterized or proceeding from mental dullness. Do you know when to use stupid, fatuous, silly, inane, foolish, and asinine? Find out on Thesaurus.com.
Commonly Confused
Stupid, ignorant, and unintelligent are all used to refer to people or things that seem to show a lack of mental resources. Stupid is the most general and most insulting term, and can describe someone lacking in intelligence, wisdom, prudence, or mental quickness. Unintelligent refers to people or things that are lacking in capacity for learning, reasoning, or understanding. Ignorant, by contrast, generally means lacking in knowledge (not necessarily lacking in intelligence).
Synonym Usage
See dull.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of stupid
First recorded in 1535–45; from Latin stupidus, equivalent to stup(ēre) “to be numb, to be stunned” + -idus -id 4 ( def. )
Explanation
A stupid person doesn’t have much intelligence or imagination, and they go through life making decisions that seem to lack all common sense. If you’ve got a brain but you don’t use it, you might be a bit stupid. The word comes from a Latin adjective that means “amazed or stunned,” and stupid people are stunned by everything because their minds are numb. You can make a stupid mistake when you’re not thinking, and you can call someone stupid if you’re feeling cruel, like “Hey, Stupid.” Zombies are stupid because their brains are dead. If that makes sense to you, then you’re not stupid, and you’re also not a zombie. Well done!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But on Monday, a federal district court judge in Massachusetts postponed the effective date on the grounds that—and I am paraphrasing here—the rule is mind-bendingly stupid and would create a needless, self-inflicted economic catastrophe.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
As a situation comedy, its characters will spend their days and nights getting in and out of scrapes, enduring self-inflicted humiliations, experiencing minor triumphs; they are all a little stupid, and a little smart.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
It falls to Wilson’s exceedingly average Joe to save a world too stupid to save itself.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
This week, Root made no attempt to hide his frustration at "stupid mistakes".
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
“How hard would it have been to include the door combination and a key in that stupid letter?”
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
“I was a bit stupider back then,” he says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
“When they need to make stupid stupider, they send me up. I’m part comedian, I’m part activist, I’m part artist. I just want a better society,” Stevens said.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
Other news reports more definitively declared that, yes, ChatGPT is becoming stupider.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 2, 2023
What could he say: I thought up an even stupider conspiracy than yours, and even though I can’t prove it’s true, I’m still afraid it will kill you?
From Slate ● Sep. 24, 2022
Whatever stupid research she’s done that might suggest the Ranch is a bad place to live is wrong, so I’ll answer her even stupider questions honestly to prove it.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
“I was like, ‘That is the stupidest looking bait I have ever seen in my life,’” Anaya says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
And talking to him in the stupidest voices,
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
Some pundits might be calling it “the most important chart in the world,” Perkins said, but in reality, it is closer to “the stupidest chart in the world.”
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025
That’s “completely bogus,” writes TS Lombard Managing Director Dario Perkins, who calls it “the stupidest chart in the world.”
From Barron's ● Nov. 6, 2025
Tino looked at me like I had just said the stupidest thing he had ever heard and I was the biggest loser he had ever met.
From "Tangerine" by Edward Bloor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
